Odette Speex: Time Traitors Book 1

by Lively, Padgett

  She nodded. “He told the guards they had a long night ahead of them.”

  “What more could he be planning?” Gabriel muttered in frustration.

  “He’s taken out the men loyal to Charles Drake,” it was Odell who spoke. He had wiped enough muck from his face to look almost human again. “Now he is sole owner of the future. Although, I don’t think he has a coherent plan anymore. He’s just blowing holes in the fabric of history. But, if I had to guess, Benjamin Franklin is still a target.” They all stared at him. “I’m Odell Speex, by the way. Odette’s brother.”

  “It’s good to see you well, Speex.” Gabriel smiled at him.

  “We know each other?” Odell asked uneasily.

  “I defended you several months back at your trial for lunacy.”

  “Maybe you can tell me that story some time,” Odell commented dryly. “But I’m really hoping there are not many more people I’ve met that I’ve never met.”

  “Whot?” Tom declared, totally confused.

  “Not now, Tom.” Odette began herding the group back to the coach. “Mister Franklin lives on Craven Street, right off the Strand, we’ve—”

  “Not tonight!” Simon exclaimed, stopping everyone in their tracks. “There was a lamp hung out over Fleet Street!” He rolled his eyes at the circle of uncomprehending faces and explained impatiently, “The Royal Society! When there is a meeting of the Royal Society, a lantern is hung out over the Fleet Street entrance to the courtyard. There’s been talk of having Mister Franklin come and speak about his experimentations in electricity. I’m betting we can find him there.”

  “Christ!” Gabriel exclaimed, alarmed. “And everyone else too!”

  They clamored hastily into the coach, Wu and Fancy sitting atop with Tom to make more room for everyone. The abrupt inactivity of the carriage ride cast an awkward silence over the occupants. Cyril sat with arms crossed and cast disgruntled looks at both Gabriel and Simon. The rest were busy with their own thoughts. Their collective brainpower vacillated between overwhelming urgency and debilitating uncertainty.

  The need to get where they were going was pressing. What to do once there? None of them had the foggiest notion.

  Odette, relieved at finding herself alive after the blast, now had time to reflect on her still very precarious existence. A mathematical anomaly, Aamod had said. A person outside time—how could this all hinge on her? Could she knowingly consign herself to oblivion to save the world? Her life might be a mistake, a false narrative that should never have been. But she valued it nonetheless. She turned it all over in her mind and came to the uneasy conclusion that whatever decision would likely be made for her.

  “Arthur Bradley, you say?” Cara had been looking furtively at Odell from across the carriage. It was extremely disorienting to imagine him knowing her, yet not knowing her. He looked exactly the same. But he wasn’t the boy she knew.

  He smiled at her. “Yes, Cara. Arthur Bradley was a professor of mine at the university. He was instrumental in having me dismissed.”

  She cleared her throat. “There was an Arthur Bradley in our time as well.”

  “There was?” Odette looked at her curiously. “Did you know him?”

  “Not in any real sense. I saw him only a few times,” Cara explained uneasily. “He was known mostly to your mother.”

  Odette and Odell exchanged puzzled looks. “My mother?” they said in unison.

  “It’s an odd story.” She looked tensely out the window. “She met him before I knew her. Even before you two were born. I really know little about him. Only that his father was very rich, a merchant. I think they had several holdings in the West Indies. He was much younger than Ivy.” She looked down at her lap and bit her lip.

  Odette reached over and lightly touched her hand. “What is it, Cara?”

  “A few weeks before her death, she received several strange, threatening letters. She let me read one. It was rambling, disjointed, and full of venom. He called her… oh… all sorts of names. He said she thought she was too good for him, but it was he who should look down on her. That’s when she told me about their affair. He had admired her greatly and showered her with gifts.” Cara smiled reminiscently. “You knew your mother. She loved to be admired.” She shook her head sadly. “It was a dalliance. It was nothing. At least to Ivy, it was nothing. But… but… afterwards he obsessively attended her performances and would sometimes show up where she was on holiday or at restaurants and such. He made demands on her and threatened her if she didn’t include him in her life. It was a good thing she had powerful patrons, because nothing ever came of his threats or demands. But she was frightened of him.” Cara looked at them intently. “Truly frightened. I’d never known Ivy to be frightened of anything. Certainly not anybody. But she was terrified of Arthur Bradley. I always wondered, after they found her in the river, if he…”

  “If he had something to do with it,” Odell finished for her, grimly.

  She nodded.

  Odette’s heart beat hard against her chest. “Her death was ruled an accident.”

  “That’s why I never said anything,” Cara explained. “The authorities seemed so certain. And… it was so unlikely. I mean, why would he kill her?”

  “Why indeed?” Odell repeated bitterly. “But he did. I’m certain of it now. Until my captivity, I had no idea he even knew my mother.” He looked around at his spellbound audience. “In my time, there is no uncertainty regarding my mother’s death. She was murdered. Stabbed to death in her office at the New York City Ballet where she was artistic director.

  “It took them months, but the police finally had some promising leads. About the same time, I was approached by Charles Drake.” He shook his head in self-reproach. “Arthur Bradley would know how to distract me, even from my own mother’s murder investigation. He must have already made his jump to the past, where he had plenty of time to formulate a plan.”

  “But why?” Odette asked the question again. “Why did he hate her so? Why kill her?”

  “That, I have no answer for,” Odell replied.

  The coach had slowed to a crawl and finally stopped a few blocks west of Crane Court, the location of the Royal Society.

  Odette stuck her head out the window. “Why are we stopping?”

  “Can’t go no further, miss.” Tom pointed up the broad avenue where thick smoke billowed out from several side streets. They had come up Ludgate to Fleet Street and she could see people hastening away from the smoke. Several drivers were attempting to turn their horses around, blocking any further movement via carriage.

  They all clamored out onto the street.

  “What’s going on?” Simon asked of a passerby.

  The man, a respectable-looking shopkeeper, answered, “Can’t say exactly. Smoke came from nowhere.” He pointed up Fleet Street and squinted into the distance. “Don’t seem to be a fire. Smoke’s real unnatural-like.” He gave a quick salute to Cara and hurried off.

  It was a testament to the strangeness of the moment, that the group standing on the street elicited no comment or second glance. Half of them were a least partially covered in dried pond muck, and the other half were garishly painted with ash streaks down their faces and clothes. They stood huddled indecisively together.

  “This is Bradley’s doing,” Odell pronounced. “He’s using the smoke as cover.”

  “Smoke without fire?” Simon countered, confused.

  “It can be done,” Wu assured him.

  “Yes,” Odell confirmed. “The Chinese have the capability, but the smoke bomb is not used in the west until the nineteenth century.” He looked at them with grim satisfaction. “Bradley would know how to make them.”

  “Then we need to go!” Odette urged. “We need to find Benjamin Franklin!”

  Chapter 35

  Cara and Tom were again left with the coach. The others made their way up Fleet Street walking into the ever-thickening smoke. The city street had the appearance of an eerily silent battleground with
ghostlike figures emerging from and disappearing into the smoke.

  One of these figures materialized into the familiar wiry physique and sharp features of Hershel Gordon.

  “Hey, you there! All of you!” he shouted. “Go back! We aren’t allowing anyone past this—,” he stopped abruptly, his eyes focused intently on Odette. “Miss Swanpoole,” he said and grinned. “I was wondering when you would show up.”

  How he recognized her through all the muck, not to mention her male disguise was superseded by the greater mystery of his presence.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Seems your friend Ethan Graham overheard a very strange conversation you had a couple nights ago with Mister Wright here.”

  Odette and Gabriel exchanged an uncomfortable look as he continued, “Pretty unbelievable conversation at that. Stuff of fantasy, if you ask me.” His keen eyes had taken in the rest of the group and stopped on Odell. “Thing was, Graham recognized a certain element of the story. A crystal key.” He nodded with satisfaction as he watched Odell stiffen. “Seems, in his line of work, there were rumors about a man with a crystal pendant…”

  “Sir Archibald Brandon,” Fancy declared with certainty.

  “Right you are, young miss.”

  Odette huffed, “That doesn’t explain your presence.”

  “I went to my magistrate, Sir John Fielding, to explain—”

  “He believed you!” She interjected, astounded.

  Hershel laughed. “I’m not such a fool. I didn’t tell him everything. I didn’t have to. Sir John, he’s a nous one. He’s been suspicious of certain happenings. Rumors and the like, orders he’s received to ignore events, crimes—such as those committed against you.

  “I told him from my investigations that Sir Brandon was likely involved in forming a private army. Maybe intent on the assassination of a colonial diplomat, you know, aggravating relations between the Crown and the colonies and such. So he sent me and two other runners to the Royal Society with the expressed purpose of bringing Mister Franklin to him at Bow Street.”

  Odette had to admire his ingenuity but was becoming increasingly nervous. “Where is Mister Franklin?”

  “At The Royal Society,” he answered with confidence. “We aren’t moving him until the smoke clears.”

  Odette made as if to pass him, but he stopped her. “We have things under control.”

  “Control!” she practically shouted. “You have nothing under control until you have Brandon! He just blew up a house full of people! This smoke is his doing. You have no idea what he is capable of!”

  The others pressed in on Hershel arguing and talking at once. Odette felt a light tap on her shoulder. Wu jerked his head toward the back of the group, and she followed as they silently moved away and across the street. The smoke soon swallowed them up, and the argument grew distance and muffled.

  “Crane Court is just up here,” he informed her, as they turned onto a wide alleyway bordered on each side by brick residences. It dead-ended into a large house with a staircase up to the door.

  “That’s The Royal Society,” Wu said, pointing at the large three-story building.

  The smoke was less here but still thick enough for caution. They crept along the wall and up the stairs. Odette felt a sense of foreboding as they easily opened the door and entered the foyer to the club.

  She looked around at the modest interior and wondered where the members congregated when she felt Wu violently jerked from her side. She turned just in time to see a heavy gloved hand strike her across the forehead.

  *

  Odette’s first sense was the taste of blood mingled with the smell of fresh air. Her head hurt like the devil, and she groaned, trying to sit up.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you,” a familiar, hateful voice said through a haze of pain. “The fall would definitely kill you.”

  She slowly opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. She blinked several times and tried to focus on the fantastical scene before her.

  They were perched on a scaffolding of sorts spread out like a web between several chimneys. Sir Brandon stood next to a cannon-like gun secured to the scaffold with heavy chains. From the edge of the platform, the roof sloped away precipitously to where she could see a modest, walled garden below. In the garden, Odette saw men milling around. Some were in groups, others in solitary contemplation.

  She drew in a deep breath and opened her mouth.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Sir Brandon purred. “Or else your chink friend here goes splat.”

  He had worked the tip of his boot underneath Wu’s still, bound form and made a motion as if to thrust him off the edge of the platform.

  Odette snapped her mouth shut.

  “Good girl.” He drew his foot away. “Of course I could just kill you to keep you quiet, but I’m conducting a little experiment.” He pursed his lips and clasped his hands together just under his chin. “Now. After I kill all those men down there, will you still be here? Or, will you go poof?” He gestured with his hand, bringing his fingers together then spreading them out as if releasing a powder into the air. “You know, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I’ve done so much tinkering, so to speak, with history in just this one night, it could go either way. With Drake and his minions gone you may not survive this night, even if Franklin doesn’t. And he won’t”

  She pushed herself painfully up to lean against the brick chimney. “Why?” she asked as she wiped blood from her eyes. “Why?”

  Sir Brandon raised his eyebrows. “Why what, Odette? Really, you must be more precise in your questions. Why the experiment? Why the gun? Why the hate?” he said through gritted teeth, leaning close to her his hands balled into fists.

  He straightened and swallowed his anger. “People say love is the ruling passion. But I have found hate to be its equivalent.” He gave a huff of laughter. “I wouldn’t expect you to agree, considering your efforts to save the life of this boy over the many down there in the garden. Or do you believe you can somehow save them all?”

  He walked over to the gun. “This is a Gatlin gun,” he informed her. “It’s not supposed to make an appearance in the annals of warfare for another hundred years or so. However, it can be made with relative ease using materials available in this time. With some modifications, it is still a very efficient weapon. I can kill everyone in that garden within two minutes. And, kick your little gook friend off at the same time.”

  Odette gave a choke of laughter.

  “You find this funny,” he sneered.

  “This!” she exclaimed gruffly. “All this, because my mother dumped you! A rejected lover!” She breathed in some blood and coughed. “How banal.”

  The blow landed hard against her cheek. Her head exploded again with pain.

  “You think you know!” he spat through gritted teeth. “Your mother took everything from me! The vain, self-centered bitch! She took the love you only get once in a lifetime. The all-consuming love you can never feel for another, ever again!” He gripped Odette by the lapels of her jacket and forced her to look up into his distorted face. “She laughed at my ‘boyish stupidity.’ She used her connections to cast doubt on my character. My career faltered, but worse… far worse, is that she kept my own son from me!” He threw Odette vehemently away from him and strode over to the gun.

  “You’re mad!” Odette forced herself to focus. “You’re not our father!”

  “I am not your father. That particular honor belongs to whatever alternate version of me existed in your timeline.” His face took on a faraway look. “I wonder. Do we replace ourselves when we move through time? It appears Odell did.”

  Sir Brandon grinned delightedly at her. “Which means, after tonight, your father will be no more.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “Looks like you’re doomed no matter what, Odette.”

  He pulled a pistol from his breast pocket and strode over to her. “Odell is my son. Your mother denied it, but I am n
ot an idiot. I can add and subtract as well as the next man. And there were no others in the time we were together, your mother’s protest notwithstanding.” He bent down next to her and put the pistol to her head. “One night I went to her at the ballet. I had seen Odell at the university, spoken with him, worked with him. He was brilliant. I wanted to be part of his work. I wanted him to know who his father was.”

  He pushed the gun point hard against Odette’s temple. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with me,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “She denied I was his father.” He shook his head hard as if trying to dislodge the troubling memory. “I don’t know what came over me. Next thing I knew, I was holding a bloodied letter opener and Ivy lay dead.”

  He stood up and dropped the gun to his side. He looked over the edge and muttered to himself, “Where is he?”

  Sir Brandon turned back to her and reached up to take the crystal key from around his neck. He held it out in one hand. “I had already stolen much of Odell’s technology. I never really planned to use it. But I knew the police, if not Odell, would eventually discover my crime. So I did everything I could to discredit his work, and then I ran. Once I arrived here, it was all so easy. I got everything I wanted. I thought, why not? Why not change history so I can get everything I want in the future as well.”

  His eyes glittered insanely as he leveled the pistol at Odette. “Doesn’t everyone want to be king of the world?”

  She closed her eyes.

  The loud report echoed through the night. She felt nothing—no pain, no searing flesh—nothing. It took her several seconds to realize she was still breathing. That she was still in the world. Odette opened her eyes. Sir Brandon’s body lay slumped over the Gatlin gun.

  Standing straddled across the eves of the roof was Benjamin Franklin. The pistol in his hand still smoking. “I don’t,” he answered coldly.

  For such an elderly and portly gentleman, Odette thought he was really quite agile. He covered the few short feet to the platform without slipping or bobbing on the steep roof. Once there, he came to her and placed his folded handkerchief against her forehead. “I don’t think your skull is cracked, but you are going to have a scar.”